


Persephone

by RaymondShaw



Category: The Fall (2006)
Genre: Bad Romance, F/M, Flashback/Memory, Greek mythology as a backdrop/symbolism, drabble-ish, is mental rather than physical, pre-movie timeline, roy's first fall, so roy is persephone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-17 03:24:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16966761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaymondShaw/pseuds/RaymondShaw
Summary: Roy’s first fall is not necessarily the one that damages his spine.





	Persephone

**Author's Note:**

> Persephone - in Greek mythology, the goddess of springtime, flowers, and vegetation abducted by Hades, god of the underworld, to be his wife and queen. Though her release was ordered by Zeus, king of the gods, she was tricked into eating pomegranate seeds (food of the dead) by Hades and thus was bound to him and the underworld forever.
> 
> Clarissa - female name derived from the Germanic 'Clarice', in turn derived from the Latin word 'clarus' meaning 'bright, clear, or famous'.
> 
> ***
> 
> This ficlet was, oddly enough, inspired by another of Lee Pace's films, 'Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day' - I remembered the scene in which Delysia reveals her true identity to Guinevere and explains that she has entrusted only Michael with the story of her humble origins, thereby having left herself vulnerable to potential shame and rejection. Considering Roy's actress girlfriend in 'The Fall', I wondered if she may have harbored a similar secret and possibly regretted having exposed it to him, not liking to be reminded of her lowly roots in light of her current celebrity. I was exploring a possible reason underlying her decision to leave Roy behind - since the film makes it clear that the titular 'Fall' is, at best, only a secondary motivation (during the opening credits, the actress can be seen talking/flirting with leading man Sinclair/Gov. Odious before either of them learn of Roy's tragic accident) - and I thought that this scenario might provide plausible impetus. I thought it would be interesting if, where Delysia sought acceptance, the actress instead wanted commiseration...

Clarissa might be her stage moniker, might be the name that had made her famous and gained her the adulation of the multitudes; but she’d confessed to Roy, once – one starlit night, when the day’s shooting was over and everything had run nice and smooth, _swell;_ and two too many shots of celebratory tequila in the director’s trailer had left them tipsy and too giddy for prudence – that her real name, the one her steelworker father and seamstress mother had given her, was Jane.

 _Plain Jane_ , he’d teased her lightly; his own too-loud drunken giggles deafening, the bright stars shining in his eyes blinding so he didn’t hear the glass-shard sharpness behind the clear bell-chime in her answering laughter, didn’t see the poisonous bitterness in the pomegranate sweetness of her smile and so he’d kissed her – right there, in back of the set, where the camera and lighting equipment was stored in feet-snaring snarls of electrical cords – before he’d thought better of it...thought and perhaps remembered that romance, the possibility of true love, between the princess and the beggar-boy bandit, the rising starlet and the stuntman in the shadows, was the stuff of dreams and of fairytales and children’s stories in the land of make-believe; was _fake_ , was a _lie_ , couldn’t be _real_. Her mouth was honeyed and cloying and carried the lingering burn of tequila and he drowned in the taste of it, her tongue coiled around his like a serpent, and the stars tore loose from their moorings and plummeted to earth in a showering burst of dying radiance as he went under with the scorch of alcohol and asp venom flooding his veins; plunging deeper and deeper even before his ankle turned, caught on some loose wiring and he dragged her down on top of him – falling, falling…

* * *

**Thanks to the reader who left kudos - this fandom needs more love! Also, don't hesitate to drop me a line in a review!**


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